Judge Voids Retrial Date for Powell

The retrial date for a policeman who clubbed and kicked Rodney King was abandoned Friday by a judge who suggested the state case against the officer should be dismissed if a federal prosecution goes ahead.

“I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to have three trials on the same subject matter involving the same defendant,” Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg said in a brief hearing.

Weisberg had planned to hold Officer Laurence Powell’s retrial on Oct. 19 on a single count of assault under color of authority. But a federal grand jury’s indictment Tuesday of Powell and three fellow officers changed everything, he said.

“The court is intent on reconsidering its position in regard to a dismissal of this matter,” Weisberg said.

The white officers’ acquittals in the videotaped beating of King, a black motorist stopped after a high-speed chase in March, 1991, set off a convulsion of rioting in Los Angeles this spring in which 52 people were killed.

Weisberg ordered lawyers back to court Aug. 14 to argue the dismissal issue.